Jonathan Comey: Patriots part of NFL's craziness

If there's solace for the New England Patriots this fine Wednesday morning — the tied-for-last-place New England Patriots — it's that the entire NFL has gone haywire.

JONATHAN COMEY

If there's solace for the New England Patriots this fine Wednesday morning — the tied-for-last-place New England Patriots — it's that the entire NFL has gone haywire.

Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers? All 1-2, all outside of the league's top 10 in passer rating. The Vikings, Bills, Bengals and Chargers are all leading or tied for the lead in their respective divisions. The Saints are 0-3.

The Falcons and Texans are the only teams to have strung together three good games, while even the dregs of the league have shown flashes. The winless Cleveland Browns are a pretty good pick to be No. 32 in power rankings, yet they've been within a touchdown in the fourth quarter in all three of their losses — to teams with winning records.

Oh, and apparently there are replacement refs working the games, which a few people might have noticed along the way (sarcasm alert).

Weird stuff — and the Patriots are right on the vanguard of the strange. They've lost in back-to-back weeks on the final play of the game, which is pretty remarkable, but it's their stats that are really weird.

It's downright odd to see New England's offense hovering around league norms, even this early in the season. The two most important offensive statistics are points per game and yards per play, and the Patriots rank 10th in scoring and 17th in yards per play. That is completely out of character, and can't be chalked up to extraordinary opposition. Tennessee was poor defensively, Baltimore average and Arizona excellent — which adds up to a representative sample.

Last year they were third in both numbers, and haven't been worse than sixth in EITHER stat since the Matt Cassel season in 2008.

The offense isn't poor, by any stretch, but it's also not at the type of championship level it needs to reach — especially if the defense is going to be as up-and-down as it hinted at Sunday night vs. Baltimore.

Worse, for the Patriots, is that there's no really logical explanation. The line has been doing its job, Brandon Lloyd is an enormous upgrade as the outside receiver, Stevan Ridley is more explosive and as reliable as BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Tom Brady is still Tom Brady "» so what gives?

Is Aaron Hernandez that impactful? Is it a fluke of too few early games to analyze, a result of the playcalling transition from Bill O'Brien to

Josh McDaniels? Is Bill Belichick trying too hard to outcoach and outthink the opponent? Is there a limit to how many tight ends can be on an NFL roster?

It's all pretty puzzling. But then again, in a league where the officials are a bigger story than the superstars, what do you expect?

They're not very good at their jobs. The other guys were way better. Get the other guys back on the field. Now.

Sincerely,

Everyone in America

I downgraded the Bills as "frauds" in preseason and after their Week 1 loss to New York, but they certainly have looked good the last two weeks.

By straight statistical measure, Buffalo's offensive line has been the best in the league thus far — they've allowed one sack while rushing for a robust 5.6 yards per carry — both the best numbers in the league. Are they that dominant? Probably not, but it's certainly a strength.

"Their offensive line has been a really good group this year to give the quarterback some protection and time to basically run the offense," Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia said on a conference call Tuesday. "Obviously the group, the longer they play together and develop, they've really been able to do some really good things with the offense."

I'll probably never be sold on QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, who's had four seasons of starting to prove himself and fallen consistently short. That said, when he plays a good game the Bills have a pretty good chance to win against anyone — they've got great special teams, a very good defensive line, solid skill players, decent pass defense.

Belichick's take Tuesday: "They move the ball well, they score a lot of points, they gain a lot of yards. Defensively they're very disruptive up front. They have a lot of good corners and coverage players and they play quite a few of them in the game, sometimes as many as seven defensive backs, but frequently five or six so they have a lot of those players. High draft picks, good athletes, that type of thing."

The Patriots are four-point favorites on the road despite the inferior won-loss record and stats, a nod to both New England's quality and the "intangibles" — can anyone imagine the Patriots losing three in a row or starting 1-3? It does seem like a longshot, but New England will have to play to its potential to get the win.

It's kind of ironic to watch "The Wes Welker Controversy" fade out of necessity. First Hernandez (stealing Welker's slot snaps) went down, now Julian Edelman has a hurt hand. In three weeks, he's now been targeted 25 times, played 72 snaps last week, and is on pace for 85 catches and 1,338 yards.

The Pro Football Focus review of the Patriots-Ravens game this week was about as you'd expect: a great overall grade for the offense, a similarly poor grade for the defense. For the season, several offensive starters rank in their position's top 10 in the analysis site's grades: WR Brandon Lloyd, HB Stevan Ridley, RT Sebastian Vollmer, LT Nate Solder, C Ryan Wendell and Tom Brady. One who isn't is Rob Gronkowski, tied for 11th despite good play in large part because of the big penalties called against him.

Stat pack: The Patriots are third in turnover differential at +4. "» The NFC has nine of the 15 teams with winning records thus far, and is up four games on the AFC in inter-conference matchups "» The NFC also has eight of the top nine defenses in yards per play allowed. "» The Patriots have more first downs (83) than points (82). Last year, they had 399 first downs to 513 points. "» Danny Woodhead's 2.6 yards per carry is a real outlier; he averaged 5.16 yards in 2010-11.

Jonathan Comey is sports and features editor for The Standard-Times. Email him at jcomey@s-t.com